Dear Open Library Patrons,
We need your help to make sure the Internet Archive—the non-profit that runs Open Library—lasts forever. On November 9, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. This is a firm reminder that we must also design for change. So we set a new goal: to create a copy of our collections in the Internet Archive of Canada. This will cost millions. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions. It means serving patrons when government surveillance may be on the rise. This is a non-profit library built on trust. Reader privacy is very important to us, so we don’t accept ads. We don’t collect your personal information. But we still need to pay for servers, staff and rent. If everyone reading this gave $50, we could end our fundraiser right now. If you use Open Library, please give what you can today. Thank you.
Click here to donate now.

Dear Open Library Patrons,
We need your help to make sure the Internet Archive—the non-profit that runs Open Library—lasts forever. On November 9, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. This is a firm reminder that we must also design for change. So we set a new goal: to create a copy of our collections in the Internet Archive of Canada. This will cost millions. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions. It means serving patrons when government surveillance may be on the rise. This is a non-profit library built on trust. Reader privacy is very important to us, so we don’t accept ads. We don’t collect your personal information. But we still need to pay for servers, staff and rent. If everyone reading this gave $50, we could end our fundraiser right now. If you use Open Library, please give what you can today. Thank you.
Click here to donate now.

Dear Open Library Patrons,
We need your help to make sure the Internet Archive—the non-profit that runs Open Library—lasts forever. On November 9, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. This is a firm reminder that we must also design for change. So we set a new goal: to create a copy of our collections in the Internet Archive of Canada. This will cost millions. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions. It means serving patrons when government surveillance may be on the rise. This is a non-profit library built on trust. If everyone reading this gave $50, we could end our fundraiser right now. If you use Open Library, please give what you can today. Thank you.
Click here to donate now.

Dear Open Library Patrons,
We need your help to make sure the Internet Archive—the non-profit that runs Open Library—lasts forever. On November 9, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change. This is a firm reminder that we must also design for change. So we set a new goal: to create a copy of our collections in the Internet Archive of Canada. This will cost millions. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions. It means serving patrons when government surveillance may be on the rise. This is a non-profit library built on trust. If everyone reading this gave $50, we could end our fundraiser right now. If you use Open Library, please give what you can today. Thank you.
Click here to donate now.

Editing Books

I can't see the recaptcha.

Sometimes when people are referred to Open Library from other sites they come from a referral address that the recaptcha doesn't recognize and the images are blank. Try signing up directly from our signup page.

Additionally if there are problems during your signup--your chosen username is taken for example--the recaptcha changes and you have to start form the beginning. We are working on this but for now, if this happens, please start over again.

Why is every username taken?

There is a problem with how our signup page works with some browsers where once you get a "username taken" message, it doesn't clear up if you try again and you can't sign up. Try starting over at the beginning sign-up page

I didn't receive the verification email.

Check your inbox and spam folder for an email from noreply@openlibrary.org with the subject line Welcome to Open Library The email should arrive within a few minutes but can sometimes take longer. If you can not find the email, contact us and we can resend the verification email.

I didn't receive the verification email because I mistyped my email address.

You can sign up to Open Library again with the proper email address or contact us with both the mistyped email address and the correct email address you would like to replace it with and we can make the change and send you a new verification email.

I am being asked for my Adobe ID and I'm not sure how to get one.

There is a link to go to the Adobe website to sign up for an Adobe ID on the page asking you for a login. If you can not see that link or the page has disappeared, you can go to this page on the Adobe website and click the "Don't have an Adobe ID?" link to set one up.

I deleted my ebook instead of returning it.

Books will automatically be returned to Open Library at the end of the two week loan period. If you are not sure what you have checked out, you can check your loans page.

I get an Adobe error "Document is not licensed for this device type"?

This seems to be fixed by deactivating Adobe Digital Editions (via control-shift-d) and then restarting the application, then reactivating with your Adobe username and password, and then retrying. It seems to work if you borrow a different book, and may require time for the Archive's Adobe server to forget about the book that showed the problem in the first place.

I get an "Unable to Return" error with the code E_BAD_LOAN_ID?

We are not totally certain why users are getting this error message but the

forums seem to think it's related to ADE 2.0. Please see this forum posting for information on how to revert to an earlier version of ADE and contact us with more information if you are having this problem.

What if I get an Adobe error that says E_ADEPT_IO, or E_ADEPT_DATABASE, or some other Adobe DRM Error?

These errors mean your computer is not letting the .acsm file connect to the server to authenticate and deliver your book. They can happen for a number of different reasons. Here are some things to investigate.

Are you behind a restrictive firewall?

Do you have fairly high security settings on your computer?

Can you add our server to the list of sites your browser or operating system trusts?

Can you right-click on URLLink.acsm, choose "Properties," and unblock the file?

I am trying to return an item early using Overdrive Media Console and the book will not return.

I want to check out the book I have in a different format. Can I do that?

Sometimes. To do this you have to return the book and check it out again; there is no other way to "swap" one format for another. Books checked out via Adobe Digital Editions can be returned early. Books checked out using other ebook readers can not.

I clicked through to read a book from the item's record page and the book that opened in the BookBrowser was the wrong book

Sometimes the items in Open Library may have bad metadata. Usually this happens because we made a link between an Internet Archive item and an Open Library record and that linkage was incorrect. You can let us know when you find instances of this, or if you are confident that you understand the problem, you can remove the Open Library/Internet Archive link and fix the problem.

I've added a book but the record says "author unknown." I know I added the author. What's going on?

When you type in an author's name in the author box, you must wait for a drop down menu to appear. Our database checks to see if we already have the author you've entered in our database. The list will contain authors with the same (or similar) name to the one you've typed in. Once the drop down appears, you must click on an author name, even if there is only one. If you do not click on an author name, none will be entered and the record, once saved, will list no author, only "author unknown."

I made a duplicate record by mistake. How can I delete it?

You cannot delete records. Click on the problem flag at the bottom of any page and send us a message with the link or OL identifier. Please be very careful in suggesting deletions. We only want to delete works that are exactly duplicated elsewhere in Open Library.